


Mystery Fell

by Dire_Kumori



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Gen, Technically major character death, but it's okay because he keeps coming back
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dire_Kumori/pseuds/Dire_Kumori
Summary: One moment, he was dangling over a pit of spikes, only seconds away from being dropped to his death. The next, the earth was shaking and they both were falling. But not into a pit of spikes. Instead, Arthur finds trapped in a strange underground world with no idea how to find his way home. To make matters worse, Lewis seems to have gone dormant and the caverns are inhabited by strange, powerful creatures who harbor a grudge against humanity. Not all of them are cruel, however, and with the aid of an unusual new ally Arthur is determined to bring himself and his best friend home.No matter how many resets it takes.





	1. Determination

“Lewis?”

Two syllables froze time, the person who uttered them staring in numb shock, the person they were directed to hardening his glare before softening it, just a bit. Just enough to fix his victim with a curious look.

Scrawny legs that had once been kicking at the air hung limp, the hands once scrabbling at the arm suspending him above the cave floor going still. Arthur Kingsman – mechanic and reluctant paranormal investigator – stared into the ghostly face of his lost – _dead?_ – best friend with a wide, unseeing eyes. Lewis Pepper – retired paranormal investigator turned vengeful spirit – tightened his loosening grip on the front of Arthur’s shirt.

A moment later and Arthur would have plummeted to his doom in a pit full of spear-like stalagmites. A moment earlier, that was exactly what Lewis had been intending, but then his name fell from Arthur’s lips and suddenly he found himself at a loss. He’d felt the surge of magic when his flames engulfed his skull and brought back his human face but he hadn’t done it. That surge had come from Arthur, from when he’d touched Lewis’s sleeve with his left hand, and it was only then that Arthur had stopped fighting.

And it didn’t make sense.

Why was Arthur acting like he only now knew who his pursuer was? Why wasn’t he attempting to escape anymore? And why…

Arthur’s eyes had grown wet. Fat tears had formed in the corners of his eyes and were now trailing down his cheeks, leaving prominent trails that only further emphasized the darkened circles below his eyes.

“Lewis...”

If he still had lungs, Lewis’s breath might have hitched. Why did Arthur sound so… heartbroken?

“Why are you dead?”

...What?

Seconds ticked by. The only sound for several tense moments was the rasping of Arthur’s short breaths, and the gentle cackle of the magical flame that formed Lewis’s hair. Even the deadbeats had fallen silent, no longer humming their haunting melody. Slowly, Lewis’s grip on he collar of Arthur’s shirt tightened, and if he’d still had skin it might have started turning white where it stretched over the knuckles.

Then, with a furious snarl, he whirled around and hurled Arthur as hard as he could across the cave. Arthur let out a pathetic yelp as he struck the ground with a thud and skidded to a stop several feet away.

“Are you _shitting_ me!?” the ghost snarled, flames lighting up once more. The glowing pink pompadour on his head blazed and the flames climbed across his shoulders, down his arms to his hands, flaring wildly but not so much as singing the black suit he wore. “Where the _fuck_ do you get off asking me that?! Why am I dead!? _Like you don’t know!!!_ ”

Stunned by his collision, Arthur could barely react. His one moving arm came up to shield his face as Lewis strode towards him. Lewis stalked towards the mechanic menacingly, flames growing hotter and brighter as he drew ever closer. His booming voice reverberated throughout the cavern and into Arthur’s eardrums, echoing so loudly that the ground seemed to shake.

No, wait…

As the echoes faded, a soft rumbling became apparent. And then a loud rumbling. And then a _deafening_ roar of collapsing rock.

The ground really _was_ shaking! Debris fell from the ceiling, grey stone illuminated by pink light pelting both the human and the ghost. Arthur struggled to pull himself to his feet, only to lose his balance as the shaking grew more violent. Lewis’s glowing pink eyes darted upwards, and then he shot forward, hands outstretched towards Arthur.

A stalactite dropped straight down, impaling him straight through the top of his skull. Arthur watched, horrified, as the golden, beating heart at his breast plopped down to the ground while his form fizzled and dissipated. Acting without thinking, he darted forward and snatched up the heart and then spun on his heel and bolted for the exit. His feet were unsteady but if he could just make it to the mouth of the cave-!

The ground lurched, nearly throwing Arthur from his feet again but through sheer determination he managed to stay upright, booking it to the exit. He needed to survive. He needed to survive and get Lewis – His heart? Locket? Whatever this thing was! – out so he could find out what happened and return him to Vivi.

Vivi… What happened to her after the car wreck? Was she okay? Yet another reason he had to make it through this alive! Arthur pushed his legs harder, but it felt like he still wasn’t going fast enough. His broken prosthetic swung limply, seeming to drag him down and if his other hand hadn’t been clutching Lewis’s locket to his chest desperately Arthur would have torn the dead weight from his shoulder right then and there.

A great crumbling filled his ears and dimly Arthur was aware of the ground behind him lurching, collapsing into the spiked pit below. He cleared the cavern those little pink ghosts had chased him down, but where did he go from here? Which way was out? Lewis had just dropped him in the middle of the cave with no idea which way was which, and to make matters worse, without Lewis’s pink flames he could barely see two feet in front of his face! The only light now came from the golden locket and the little pink ghosts, but it was hardly enough. Given little other choice, Arthur picked a random direction and pushed himself as fast as he could go, swearing that if he lived through this he would never set foot in another cave again!

The pink ghosts swarmed around him, hissing and spitting but making no move to attack him. Maybe because he was holding Lewis? Was the heart even Lewis? He hadn’t had time to think about it, but it was too late to worry about that now. The entire cavern behind him had collapsed and the quaking was only growing worse. Arthur nearly slammed into the cavern wall several times, and succeeded in actually doing so twice, adding to his collection of bruises. Exit. Where was the exit!?

His legs ached. His lungs burned. He stumbled, fell to his knees, and pulled himself up, pushing himself even harder. Against his chest he could feel the golden heart beating furiously in tandem with his own. Oh shit, what if he didn’t make it-

No sooner than he’d thought that, Arthur heard a deafening crack and felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. The ground beneath his feet gave way. Suddenly nothing was supporting him but air, and he was falling, being swallowed up in darkness.

A paralyzing scream ripped its way out of his throat, but nobody was around to hear.

* * *

 _“_ _Hey Lew, can I ask you something?”_

_“Hm? Sure, Artie. What’s up?”_

_You play with your hands nervously._

_“Do… Do you like me?”_

_“...”_

_“...Sorry, it was a stupid question-”_

_“_ _I_ _s everything okay?”_

_“Y-yeah, of course it is! I was just… I mean, I...”_

_Lewis fixes you with a confused look. You feel your heart clench._

_“I’m sorry, it was nothing. Forget I said anything.”_

_“Artie, you know you can talk to me if there’s something wrong, right?”_

_“Yeah, I know. I was just being stupid-”_

_“Don’t call yourself that. I’m serious._ _Y_ _ou’re my...”_

A brilliant pink light shone through Arthur’s eyelids, wrenching him unceremoniously from the memory-dream. Eyes shooting open, he attempted to lurch upright only to meet with a searing pain in his shoulder as his prosthetic refused to follow his body. The metal squealed and sparked as he tried to pull against it, but it wouldn’t budge. The hand had been pierced by a stalactite – or maybe an upturned stalagmite – driven into the ground by the fall. Nothing remained of the hand except what bits had been pushed into the earth but enough wiring and cables remained to keep Arthur trapped.

Turning on his side, Arthur grabbed his wrist and attempted to wrench it free as the pink light turned into an intense, searing flame. Sweat coated his skin; whether from the heat or the fear he didn’t know. Lewis’s heart-shaped locket – now floating several feet in the air – was exuding waves of flame, and as he squinted Arthur realized he could just make out a humanoid form in it. Lewis? Was that Lewis coming back? For a moment relief washed over Arthur before he remembered that Lewis had been trying to kill him and went back to trying to wrench his arm free. Maybe if he could rip the wires out-

Arthur screamed out in pain as the heel of a black dress shoe came down on his human fingers, crushing them against the beat up metal of his prosthetic. He was well and truly fucked this time. Glancing up, he froze again in sheer terror at the blazing pink eyes glaring down at him. Lewis had one arm raised, a ball of pink flame swirling in his open palm, and the other was balled into a tight fist, trembling slightly with rage.

Arthur felt sick to his stomach. Lewis was going to burn him alive. His best friend was dead and had turned into a ghost and was going to burn him alive.

Silently, he begged for all of this to be just another horrible nightmare.

“Lewis...” He trembled beneath Lewis’s foot. “Please, don’t-”

“Begging isn’t going to save you,” Lewis cut him off coldly, icy tone juxtaposing his own fire. “Goodbye, Arthu-”

_Fwip!_

_Fwip!_

_Fwip!_

And then it was Lewis’s turn to be cut off. The heat died suddenly as Lewis’s form was pierced by a series of bone-white projectiles. Eyes going wide, Arthur watches as Lewis turned his glare on the newcomer.

“Why you-”

Whatever Lewis was about to say was cut off as the newcomer summoned yet another hail of pellets and fired them at him. Once more they tore through his ghostly body, but this time one of the pellets struck him right in is glowing heart-shaped locket. Lewis’s form went fuzzy, like an old TV with bad reception, and then blinked out of existence as the locket went flying through the air and landed somewhere several feet behind Arthur. Arthur hardly seemed to notice, eyes transfixed on his savior.

A flower. Large and yellow, with tattered petals and a human face set in a frightful expression. The flower’s dark eyes were ringed with bruises not unlike his own and from the base of where its stem met the grown a pair of thorny vines sprouted and reached for Arthur, causing the mechanic to flinch.

“Wh-wh-wha- What-”

“Introductions later!” the flower snapped, eyes darting nervously across the scenery as its vines wrapped around the stalagmite/stalactite keeping Arthur pinned. “We need to go, _now!_ There’s no way she didn’t hear all that noise, and when she comes...”

The flower trailed off and Arthur didn’t ask for an explanation. He was too busy staring wide-eyed at the stalagmite/stalactite now suspended in the air by deceptively delicate-looking vines. With hardly any effort whatsoever, the flower tossed aside the massive spear of rock and then retracted its vines, surveying the area one last time before fixing its eyes on Arthur.

“Can you walk? I can’t carry you, you’re gonna have to use your own feet.”

The question snapped Arthur from his daze. He looked like a bobble-head before he pulled himself shakily to his feet. His prosthetic, more broken than ever, swung limply at his side. Broken pieces of what used to be his hand dangled from the wrist by a few sparking wires. Arthur made a mental note to fix those later, before he got himself or someone else electrocuted.

“Hurry up!” the flower urged. “She’ll be here any minute!”

“Y-yeah...” Arthur tore his eyes away from his damaged limb. “I just need to...”

He’d been looking for his friend for so long, and despite the past few hours he wasn’t going to give up.

Yellow eyes swept the scene, finding grey, stone buildings lining empty streets, bare of even the slightest hint of color or life, save a few spatters of red where he had been laying. No people, no weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, no insects even. Nothing but these old buildings and darkened street lamps… a good portion of which seemed to have been crushed by the cave in. It struck him right then how lucky he was to have survived the fall in the first place, even if he wasn’t exactly feeling lucky at that moment.

Still, if he’d survived that, he figured he could survive finding his way home. Taking a deep breath, Arthur mustered up as much determination as he could and made his way over to where Lewis’s locket was lying in the rubble.

Arthur stumbled over his first few steps as he ran to the locket, scooping it up gingerly in his remaining hand. It looked so small and fragile in comparison to how Lewis had looked before, the surface cracked slightly from the force of one of the flower’s bullets. Arthur tensed up. Could Lewis heal from that? He’d come back before, but his heart had looked healthy then, warm and golden instead of cold and grey-

“Come on!”

Right. The flower said someone dangerous was coming. Jolting out of his daze, Arthur tucked the heart into the inner pocket of his vest, vowing to keep it safe.

Lewis may have tried to kill him, but he was still Arthur’s friend, after all.

Turning around, Arthur panicked as he saw the flower sink completely beneath the earth, only for a trail of risen dirt to crawl across the ground and then sprout again several feet away.

“This way!” the flower called.

Nodding mutely, Arthur jogged after the flower.

* * *

How odd.

She checked the ruins everyday, beneath the spot where the caverns met the open air.

But it seemed something had fallen from elsewhere.

Red irises swimming in yellow scleroses scanned the area, taking in the sight of the old buildings abandoned so long ago, now crushed beneath heaps of rock and broken stalactites and blackened with soot.

How very odd.

Still, this wouldn’t be a problem. Her eyes found the red spatters across the ground, leading down the street and deeper into the ruins.

A human had fallen. She could smell it; its sweat, its blood, its fear…

This time, it wouldn’t get away.

* * *

It wasn’t until he’d been following the flower for a while that Arthur finally realized how badly beaten up he’d been by the fall. Fortunately nothing seemed to be broken. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a decent toolkit, anyway. But he was covered in bumps and bruises and his right arm was badly scraped up and bleeding. Arthur couldn’t recall if it was from the fall or if it had happened when Lewis threw him.

Lewis… How did he end up like that? When he’d been alive he’d been the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person Arthur knew. So careful and patient with his younger siblings, so soft and tender with Vivi. He loved the color pink, and llamas, and Sailor Moon. He cried when dogs died on TV.

Why would Lewis try to kill him? How did he die? Was it because… A hot lump formed in Arthur’s throat. If he had found Lewis sooner, could he have prevented his death? Was it his fault? Was that why Lewis was mad at him?

His heart clenched painfully. As much as he didn’t want that to be the case, it was the only possibility he could think of. And it wasn’t like he could ask Lewis, in the state he was in. Would Lewis even be willing to talk to him when he revived? If he revived?

Absentmindedly, Arthur’s remaining hand came up to touch the lump in his vest pocket.

“Okay,” a shuddering voice snapped Arthur from his thoughts, “this should be far enough. We can take a break.”

As wrapped up in his thoughts as he’d been, Arthur had hardly realized how far he had followed that strange little flower. They were no longer in the abandoned city, having taken the winding streets through a tunnel that lead to a deeper part of the caverns. The ceiling here was much lower, and the walls more closed in. Most worrisome, however, was the state of the surrounding area. Unlike the greyed out city, the stonework here was mostly a deep red, which did little to hide the suspicious stains on the cracked tile and columns. Arthur let out a shudder as he studied one particularly large, dark stain spattered across the ground not too far from where the flower had sprouted.

“S-so, uh...”

The flower was continuing to speak, all sense of urgency and panic gone from its voice as it glanced nervously between Arthur and the wall.

“Introductions! I, uh, I-I promised introductions,” it continued. “Howdy! M-my name’s Flowey! F-Flowey the F-f-flower!”

It chuckled a bit sheepishly, a vine coming up to rub the back of its petal-lined head.

“Sooooo… You are?”

Oh, right. The flower had saved his life, it was only right that he introduced himself, Arthur supposed.

Even if this whole thing was really fucking weird.

“Uh, m-my name’s Arthur. Kingsman.” Arthur did his best to flash a friendly smile, though he was afraid it came out to wobbly to pass as one. “N-n-nice to meet you, F-flowey.”

Maybe knowing he was just as nervous as it was made the flower feel better, because Flowey seemed to relax, offering a shy smile of its own. Feeling his exhaustion overtake him, Arthur slumped against the nearest wall, and then slid down until he was sitting on the cold, dusty floor. Man, it really did smell in here.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, swallowing thickly. “For saving me.”

The flower – Flowey – seemed genuinely surprised by that. Arthur didn’t know why, but then, judging by the state of its – his? Her? Their? – petals he was sure Flowey had lived a pretty rough life.

“Y-yeah, whatever,” Flowey replied, the slightest bit of pink slipping onto their face. How cute, they were shy.

“So, not to be rude...” Arthur wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase his next question without being rude, but he needed an answer, “What exactly are you?”

Flowey’s blush had faded, and now they were fixing Arthur with a sharp glare, manipulating their leaves like arms and crossing them.

“I’m a boy.”

“No, that’s not what I meant-” Although, that was good to know. “I mean, like… Are you a ghost? Or a demon possessing a flower?”

This time Flowey seemed less offended than confused.

“A what? No, I’m not a D-thing. And I’m not a ghost either. I’m just a flower.”

Just a…

“Uh, back home, flowers don’t really talk or move around on their own...” Arthur pointed out. Flowey… pouted.

“Yeah, well, we’re very obviously not where you’re from,” Flowey snapped. “This is the underground, and the only rule down here… is _kill or be killed_.”

An electric shudder ran down Arthur’s spine and every muscle he had immediately tensed.

“This is a world of monsters,” Flowey continued, oblivious to or unconcerned by Arthur’s sudden nervousness. “They hate humans. They want to kill all humans. So if they find you they’ll attack you and kill you and steal your soul… Just like that monster that was attacking you when I showed up.”

Every word out of Flowey’s mouth had Arthur’s heart sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t particularly cold in that tunnel, and yet he was shuddering fiercely, fear overtaking him. By the time Flowey got to the end, however, Arthur suddenly went rigid, indignation coloring his features.

“ _He’s not a monster!_ ”

Flowey shrank back at Arthur’s sudden rise in volume, petals and leaves trembling ever so slightly. Immediately Arthur was hit by a wave of guilt, and he forced himself to calm down.

“I’m sorry, I just...” His good hand came up to touch his vest pocket. “He isn’t a monster. His name is Lewis, and he’s my friend.”

Flowey’s frightened look morphed into a skeptical one, one eye twitching slightly. Arthur ignored it, however, in favor of reaching into his pocket to pull out the locket and inspect it. He didn’t really get a chance to look it over earlier, with Flowey rushing him, but now he could see the tiny chink in the surface where one of Flowey’s bullets had struck it. Was it smaller now than it had been before? Or had his panic just made it seem bigger in his memory?

“Y-you...”

Yellow petals trembled in fear or excitement. Arthur couldn’t tell.

“How did you get your hands on a human soul?”

Arthur blinked. A soul? Was that what it was? Frowning, he stared at his reflection in the bluish-grey surface, running his thumb in gentle circles over the crack.

“Give it to me.”

Arthur’s eyes snapped to Flowey’s face, which was once more set into a hard expression of determination.

“What?”

“The human soul. Give it to me,” Flowey repeated. “A monster who absorbs a human soul can gain incredible power. If I absorb it-”

“I’m not letting you absorb Lewis!” Arthur shrieked, lurching away from Flowey and clutching the soul close to his chest.

“Arthur, please! If I have that I can protect you from _her!_ Your friend is already dead, it’s not like it matte-”

“No! He’s dead, but he’s not gone! You can’t take him!”

“I’m not asking!”

In that instant, everything about Flowey’s demeanor changed. His face became something twisted and ugly, eyes sinking into deep black voids as overlarge fangs stretched from his mouth and glinted in the low lantern-light. A hail of bullets materialized in the air, spinning in place as thorny vines sprouted from the base of his stem and thrashed wildly in the air.

With a panicked shriek, Arthur leaped to his feet and tore off down the hall leading deeper into the ruins, ignoring the way every bone in his body screamed in pain.

“Arthur, no! Come back!”

Like hell he was. If there was one thing Arthur was good at, it was running away. Thankfully the halls seemed to be more or less empty. His legs ached worse than they ever had in his life, but Arthur wouldn’t slow down, not even for a second. He could still hear Flowey’s voice echoing behind him and he wasn’t going to give that thing a chance to get his vines on Lewis. He just needed to lose-

Suddenly the ground gave way. A thin layer of tile crumbled away beneath Arthur’s feet and he was once again falling. In comparison to before, it was a relatively short drop, over before he knew it. Or could process the pain.

Dazed by the sudden fall, it took Arthur some time to process his surroundings. Something silvery and stained with red glinted above him. Numbly, Arthur tried to reach up to touch it, but now his right arm wasn’t responding either. What was that? Wait, his hand was empty… where was Lewis? He tried to turn his head, to look around, but he couldn’t. It was pinned in place.

By the long, needle like spikes now protruding through his body, drenched in his blood.

Oh.

Oh, that was bad.

“Oh no...”

A voice… High pitched, childlike, but weighed down by despair. Flowey? Arthur couldn’t turn his head to check. Could barely see anyway. Dark spots were welling at the edges of his vision.

“A-Arthur, I-I-I’m so… I… I can f-fix this! I can...”

Flowey’s voice was sounding further away, and the blood red glow of the tunnels dimmer and dimmer…

“R-reset… I j-just gotta… Wh-why can’t I…?”

Cold. It wasn’t cold before, but he was feeling cold now. Was this… Was he dying?

“Reset! Reset, _reset, RESET!_ ”

No! He couldn’t die here! He still had things he needed to do! He needed to bring Lewis _home_ , to return him to Vivi and his family...

 _He needed to_ live!

**  
**

Arthur sucked in a shuddering breath, and then fell to his knees, gasping. What just…? How did he…?

His stomach heaved suddenly and emptied itself, splashing over the grey, dusty tile of the abandoned city.

Behind him Flowey stared in abject horror, leaves and petals drooping.

In front of him Lewis’s blue-grey heart beat slowly.

* * *

Arthur’s movements were robotic as he once again collected Lewis’s soul and followed Flowey into the caverns. Had… Had he imagined that? Was it yet another exhaustion-induced hallucination? Like that time he thought he’d seen Mystery turn into a monster?

But it felt so… _real_. He could remember the feeling of sharp spikes punching through his organs, his warm, sticky blood bubbling up out of his throat and pouring down his chin, soaking his clothes…

Arthur’s stomach lurched and if he’d had anything left in it he might have vomited again.

“J-just a little further, we’re a-almost at the sp-spot we were at b-b-before...”

Flowey’s stutter was back. In a weird way, Arthur was almost grateful the flower seemed just as freaked out as he was. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to follow him otherwise. But then, he didn’t want to go running off in this place on his own again. Not after what happened last time…

They weren’t quite at the old spot, but all at once Arthur’s legs gave out on him. He barely registered the pain of his knees hitting the stone. In comparison to being skewered, it was almost nothing.

“H-hey! Don’t give up on me now!”

Flowey sank into the ground, only to sprout again inches in front of Arthur.

“C’mon, we have to get going! This place is too open, we have to...”

The flower trailed off as he took in the expression on Arthur’s face and the tears now leaving trails on Arthur’s cheeks.

A beat passed. Flowey averted his eyes awkwardly, leaves trembling.

“S-so, uh… I guess… I g-guess I owe you an… a-an explanation for… _that_.”

Arthur jolted, looking at Flowey as though just remembering he was there. Flowey sucked in a deep breath, and then released it slowly. Where did the air go, Arthur found himself wondering absentmindedly. Did Flowey even have lungs?

“I… used to have that power,” Flowey began. “The power to change things… The power to _save_. I don’t know how, but it seems like that power’s been passed to you?”

There was no response from Arthur. He simply continued to stare at Flowey, uncomprehending. Power? Save? He didn’t have any powers. Vivi had powers. And Lewis now too, he supposed. But there was nothing even remotely special about him.

“Er, well, it works like this,” Flowey continued when Arthur didn’t speak. “You can… save at certain points in the underground. It’s usually at places where you feel particularly determined, even for a moment. And then, if you die, or if you just really, really want to for some reason, you can go back in time to those save points.”

Go back. So it was like…

“So it’s time travel?”

“Sort of,” Flowey replied, twisting his leaves back and forth as though to say ‘so-so.’ “You can’t go forward, only back. And when you use it you can’t just go back to whenever, you have to go back to the last time you saved. Or, you could reset entirely and go back to the point when you entered the underground, but no further than that.”

Oh. That was disappointing. If only he could reset to a year ago…

Without his realizing, Arthur’s hand came up to clutch the lump in his vest pocket. That had been too close. He’d almost… And if he had Lewis would be…

Once again, Flowey sighed.

“L-look, if it’s that important to you, I won’t take that soul.”

Arthur perked up, eyes once again meeting Flowey’s.

“But!” The flower was apparently not done. “Without it I’m not particularly strong, so if we run into a strong monster I won’t be much help. That means you gotta stick close to me and not run ahead so I can help you avoid them, alright? There are lots of traps too, like the one you ran into. Some of ‘em worse, actually. So you’re gonna need my help if you want to get through without dying again, got it?”

Flowey seemed plenty strong when he was lifting that stalagmite/stalactite. Still, Arthur nodded dumbly. He didn’t want to go through anything like that again. Ever.

Flowey seemed satisfied.

“Alright.”

His vines retracted into the ground, and he turned back to the tunnel they’d been traveling down.

“W-we should get moving again. We’ve been still for too long, and this place isn’t exactly safe. _She_ could come along any moment, s-so...”

“O-okay.”

Still trembling lightly, Arthur pulled himself to his feet. His prosthetic let out one last dying spark and he could feel Lewis’s soul beat weakly against his chest. He was still scared – terrified out of his mind, actually – and tired and hungry and in pain… But despite all that, he was ready to keep moving forward towards freedom.

As he walked down the dark caverns after Flowey, he was filled with determination.


	2. Gentleness

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

“STOP SCREAMING!”

Arthur clamped his good hand over his mouth. In his defense, he thought screaming was a pretty reasonable reaction to being chased by a giant eyeball monster.

Okay, maybe ‘giant’ was a slight exaggeration, as the creature was only about the size of a human child, but still, it was way too damn big for an eyeball.

“What the hell is that thing!?” he asked as he rounded a corner.

“It’s called-”

Under the ground Flowey went, popping up several feet ahead.

“-Loox. He-”

Under, and out again.

“-has serious-”

And again.

“-self-esteem issues-”

And again.

“-and picks on-”

And yet again.

“-everyone he see- STOP!”

Arthur skidded to a stop, arm windmilling seconds before a massive blade dropped from the ceiling, like a guillotine. At this point, there was no color left in Arthur’s face to drain.

“Shit…” Flowey muttered under his breath. “His hallway is completely trapped…”

Slowly turning, Arthur found Loox bearing down on them with a wicked grin and outstretched talons. Like a demonic version of Mike Lebowski, Arthur couldn’t help thinking. Swallowing thickly, he offered a shaky smile as he raised his good hand in a pacifying gesture.

“Uh… C-can’t we talk about this?” he asked, earning an irritated look from Flowey.

“Seriously!?”

The monster grinned at him, showing off rotten teeth as it laughed mockingly at him.

“Geh heh heh, nowhere left to run loser… Unless ya feel like gettin’ yer head chopped off!”

Suddenly Loox’s bloodshot eye shot wide open, a burst of light emitting from it. Arthur leaped to the side as rings of light shot out of it, attempting go dart past the monster. But then the light rings started bouncing all over the walls and floor and redirected right back at Arthur. Narrowly the mechanic managed to dodge two more only to be struck in the chest by a third and knocked on his ass, causing Loox to howl with laughter. With a pained hiss he pushed himself up, raising his hand to inspect the smoking ring that had been burnt into his skin, but that wasn’t the most troubling thing he saw when he looked down.

“Wh-wh-what the heck!?” Arthur cried at the bright magenta light his chest was emitting.

For a moment he thought it meant Lewis was coming out, but the light wasn’t coming from his pocket, it was coming from _inside_ him, and it was coalescing into a simple shape; a small, beating heart in the center of his chest. Not where his real heart would be.

“That’s your soul,” Flowey answered, though in his state Arthur almost missed it, “the culmination of your being.”

Soul. Sure. Okay. Made about as much sense as anything else in this place. Still shaking, he pulled himself to his feet. It was a struggle to resist the urge to reach into his pocket and check on Lewis’s soul as well, but Flowey had told him to keep it hidden.

A thoughtful look came over Flowey’s face. He studied the burn on the trembling human’s chest, and then the monster cackling at them. As far as monsters went, it was a little on the small side, and Arthur _had_ survived a direct hit from one of its attacks…

“Maybe you should take this chance to practice,” Flowey commented, keeping his glare fixed on Loox.

“Huh?” Arthur glanced at Flowey out of the corner of his eye. His legs were still tensed, ready to spring the moment he saw an opening and make his escape. “Practice what?”

He really hoped Flowey wasn’t going to say ‘resetting.’

“Fighting.”

…Not better. Arthur processed for a few seconds before letting out an indignant shriek.

“ _What!?_ ”

Loox fired off another barrage of magic rings. Arthur scrambled out of the way barely in time, nearly losing his balance again as he weaved between the bouncing rings. With one arm completely busted his movements were clumsy and he ended up covered in more nicks and little burns. Fortunately, none as bad as that first attack.

“If you’re gonna be stuck here a while-”

Arthur ducked under a ring.

“-you’re gonna have to learn to defend yourself.”

And jumped out of the way of another.

“You may be inexperienced, but-”

He tried to make it past Loox again, but the monster lunged at him and Arthur shrank back instinctively, tripping over his own feet in the process.

“-it’s weak against physical attacks like every other monster.”

Arthur rolled out of the way as a bunch of rings barreled at the spot where he’d been a moment earlier.

“If you can just get in a couple of good hits-”

Dodge. Dodge. Hit.

“-you can probably kill it.”

Arthur stumbled and was knocked back down by another ring. ‘Kill.’ The word alone sent shudders down his spine. Yes, he was afraid of dying, and this creature was actively trying to kill him, but could he really bring himself to end another person’s life? Even a monster’s?

“I-I can’t-”

Loox howled with laughter, eye lighting up once more.

“Time ta die, loser!”

The hallway filled with light, but not from the magic rings. Heat seared Arthur’s back as waves of red-hot flame raced past him, engulfing the monster completely. It screamed. It _howled_ in agony, the triumphant look on its face transforming into one of sheer terror as its body slowly crumbled away into dust.

An image that would be forever burned into Arthur’s mind.

Flowey’s leaves were trembling again, but Arthur hardly noticed, frozen in shock as he was. In his stupor he didn’t even notice the tall figure approaching him until their massive shadow loomed over him, and a rough, feminine voice spoke over the cackle of flames.

“What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth…”

Arthur flinched. There was something… off about the speaker’s tone. It just sounded wrong, too gentle, too motherly coming from someone who had just moments ago burned a living creature to death. Slowly, he turned around, eyes finding first the hem of a tattered, red-trimmed black robe, then the bloodstains spattered across the figure’s torso, then the large, goat-like head, once white fur matted with dirt and grime, horn chipped in places, demonic red eyes locked on him.

“It’s _her_ ,” Flowey whispered, clinging to Arthur’s leg with his vines. “ **Toriel!** ”

The creature, Toriel, knelt. The moment she she raised her hand Arthur drew away, causing her to frown.

“Ah, do not be afraid, my child,” she said. “I am… Who am I again?”

Arthur blinked. Well, she wasn’t attacking. That was good. But something seemed off about her. Not just physically.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter,” she said, apparently giving up trying to recall her own name. “Here, let me assist you.”

Without a moment’s hesitation or even the slightest tenderness, Toriel grabbed his right hand and hoisted him into the air. When he let out a pained yelp she dropped him on his feet, only to immediately start brushing off his clothes and hair.

“My, what a mess you are. You must have had a terrible experience.”

This was all so… weird. As intimidating as she was, this ‘Toriel’ wasn’t acting anything like what Arthur had expected after seeing Flowey’s reactions. She seemed more confused than dangerous. Although, she had brutally killed that Loox. Still, Arthur was acutely aware of the fact that he would have died – again – if she hadn’t.

Suddenly, Toriel’s expression turned sour. Arthur flinched, half-expecting her to suddenly strike him or set him on fire, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes had fallen down to something by his feet, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out what had earned that reaction.

“Oh… What is that _weed_ doing here?” she growled, raising one clawed hand. Heat scorched the air as a ball of bright red flame appeared in her palm. “Don’t worry, young one. _I’ll get rid of it-_ ”

“Wait!” Arthur cried as he stepped fully in front of Flowey, shielding the now petrified flower from view. “He’s my friend! You don’t have to hurt him!”

The goat-woman looked taken aback, the flame flickering and going out as she looked between Arthur and Flowey. Arthur tried not to flinch as Flowey’s vines wrapped around his leg and gave a tight squeeze, but it was a losing battle.

“Your friend?” she echoed after a long pause, expression suddenly lighting up. “Ah, of course! He’s your friend! Well, I suppose that’s alright then!”

A complete one eighty, just like that. Arthur let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Still, this is no place for a lone human to be wandering around,” she continued, making a grand sweeping motion with her arm and gesturing down the tunnel she’d just come from. “Why don’t you come with me?” The gentle tone was back, but Arthur couldn’t help noticing a hard edge. He got the feeling he wouldn’t be allowed to say ‘no’ here. “There is a safe place where you may rest further up ahead. This is no place for a lone human to be wandering around.”

He blanched when he realized which direction she was walking in.

“Do not worry,” Toriel reassured him, not breaking her stride. “I turned them off. I think. I… Yes, I turned them all off when I came down this way. Still, there may be other traps, so please stay close to me!”

Well, that was… reassuring. Still, was following her the right move? She didn’t seem like she was entirely there. Then again, she was offering to help. Beggars and choosers and all that. Arthur tried to take a step, only to feel a tug at his leg. Looking down, he found Flowey still clinging to him, staring up at him with a pensive look on his little flower face.

“Everything alright, Flowey?”

The flower gave a small jolt, releasing his vines suddenly. The poor flower was trembling, stem shaking so hard that Arthur worried his delicate, tattered petals might fall off.

“You can’t go with her.”

Frowning, Arthur said, “Is she really that dangerous? Mostly she just seems confused.”

“It’s a trick,” Flowey insisted. “I’ve lost count of the times she’s killed me. If we don’t get away from her now…”

Flowey trailed off as he noticed Arthur staring, brow creased with worry and a sympathetic look in his eyes. Of course, Flowey said he’d once had the power to SAVE. How many times must the little flower have died in this place, all alone?

Arthur let out a shuddering breath, and then steeled himself.

“Don’t worry. I… I won’t let anything happen you you.” Doing his best at putting on a brave face – and failing spectacularly – Arthur continued, “If it looks like something bad is about to happen, you just go ahead and run away, alright? I’ll try to go back before either of us gets hurt, but I don’t want to take any chances since… I don’t know how to use it yet.”

Turning back time… It seemed like a power someone could abuse easily, and Arthur had always been wary around the supernatural, unlike Lewis and Vivi. He didn’t want to recklessly start jumping around the timeline, even if it was for practice.

Flowey, for his part, was staring up at Arthur with an unreadable expression. After a few moments the flower bit his bottom lip – did flowers have lips? – and averted his eyes.

“…Whatever. Y-you should… You should get moving before she notices you’re not following…”

Ah, right. Flowey sank into the earth and Arthur took off at a brisk pace, smiling sheepishly in response tot he annoyed look Toriel was shooting him over her shoulder.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Arthur to realize that Flowey wasn’t the only one scared shitless by Toriel. The goat woman didn’t bother sneaking around or treading lightly. Despite her haggard appearance, she strode through the ruins, head held high with an air of regality. The monsters that lurked in the corners and shadows didn’t dare draw near, scampering away the moment they saw her. Somehow, Arthur didn’t feel reassured by that. Sure, he wasn’t being attacked by monsters anymore, but what was so terrifying about Toriel that these monsters were paralyzed with fear at the mere sight of her?

Did he really want to know the answer?

Toriel was speaking, but Arthur got the feeling she was talking more at him than to him. She didn’t leave much room for him to respond, simply continuing to speak as though she was used to being the only voice in the conversation. Sometimes even answering her own questions or repeating whole sentences. Arthur found himself wondering if she’d been alone in this place for a long time as well.

“It must be so frightening to suddenly end up in a place like this,” she was saying. “I usually visit a certain spot where the sunlight finds its way through to see if anyone has fallen, but this is the first time I’ve seen part of the cavern ceiling collapse like that. You are the first human to come here in a long time. It must be so frightening to suddenly end up in a place like this.”

Arthur perked up at that. ‘Where the sunlight finds its way through?’ Did that mean there was an exit to these caves somewhere nearby? Arthur opened his mouth to ask, only to be immediately cut off by Toriel once more.

“As we proceed you will see many puzzles such as the one before,” she informed him. “Ancient fusions between diversions and door keys… Or so they were, once upon a time. In the beginning they were meant only to confuse any invading humans should they find their way in. Now they are tools of execution, designed so that whomsoever stumbles into them shall meet an excruciating end.”

The memory of spikes pushing through his body sent a shiver down Arthur’s spine. No, he couldn’t let himself get discouraged. Shaking his head as though to physically shrug off the morbid thought, Arthur mustered up his determination.

“One must solve them to go from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them. You will need to solve them to go from room to room.”

Toriel came to a stop before a metal gate. Black iron tipped with wicked spikes and coated with rust in some places. There was a stone tablet on the wall next to the gate, but it was so badly cracked that whatever had been carved into it was illegible.

“Here, why don’t you solve this one?” She said, gesturing to a series of white switches on the floor, set a few feet away from the path they had been following. “The answer to it is on the sign-”

She turned towards the tablet as though to point it out, staring at it blankly as though only just noticing the damage. For several tense moments, Toriel simply stared at the tablet, unblinking. Arthur wondered if he should say anything.

“Oh yes, that’s right!” she said suddenly. “I destroyed it, didn’t I? Yes, that’s right. But don’t worry, young one. I still remember every inch of this place as it ever was. ‘Only the fearless may pass. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.’ That is what the sign once read. Do you believe you can solve it?”

“I…” Arthur winced a little at the wording. ‘Fearless’ was definitely the last word he’d use to describe himself, but then, it was a puzzle. He doubted it meant literally. Eyes returning to the puzzle, he nodded. “Yeah, I think I got it.”

Toriel beamed.

There were six switches in total, each just slightly larger than his foot and relatively clean in comparison to the red stone that made up the inside of the tunnels. Four were arranged in a perfect square, with the other two placed closer together in the center. While all of the flooring in the ruins was a similar blood red color, Arthur had noticed a pattern that seemed to designate a specific walkway; while most of the tiles were square and had a dirty brown-red color, the walkway was made up of turned diamond tiles in a much brighter shade of red, and depicting scenes of what looked like armored monsters running into battle.

‘Walk not the middle path.’ If he assumed that Toriel actually remembered what the sign read accurately…

“It’s the four switches on the outside, right?” Arthur asked. “The ones not on the road tiles?”

Toriel gave him a warm smile and said, “Why don’t we find out?”

Arthur swallowed nervously. He didn’t exactly want to test it out, but he couldn’t just stay here either. Although he wasn’t entirely sure if he could trust Toriel, he at least knew he could return to where he was before if anything went wrong. He hoped that if he messed up the trap would kill him painlessly.

Sucking in a deep breath, he took a shaky step forward.

“Arthur,” Flowey spoke up, voice shaking the slightest bit. When Arthur turned to look at the flower, his leaves were trembling, and he pulled up a root to point at the ceiling. “Be careful.”

Arthur looked up, and all of the blood drained from his face.

A massive boulder was suspended by black chains.

Yeah, he really didn’t want to find out what being crushed to death felt like.

Nothing happened when he stepped on the first switch. Or the second. Or the third. All three of them stayed sunken into the ground. On the fourth switch a rattling sound echoed through the chamber followed by a loud click. Arthur’s heart leaped into his throat and he jumped out from underneath the puzzle, visibly shaking, but Toriel only beamed as the gate swung open.

“Well done! I knew you could do it!”

If not for the overwhelming fear, Arthur might have had some complaints about her talking to him like he was a child.

“Come, innocent one, there is more ahead.”

With that Toriel turned and walked through the gate, Arthur and Flowey following closely behind.

“Why all this trouble to keep humans out?” Arthur asked as they entered the next room. “I mean, you guys are a lot stronger than us and have magic. Doesn’t seem like you’d have much trouble protecting yourselves. ‘Sides, I doubt anyone even knows you’re down here.”

Toriel let out a bitter chuckle.

“Ah, humans, they… They are very strong…”

Silence fell for a moment, Toriel seeming to drift off before suddenly speaking again.

“Tell me, my child, what year is it?”

“Uh, twenty eighteen.”

Toriel let out a soft noise. Arthur couldn’t tell whether it was a sigh or a low chuckle.

“My, but it has been a long time. Long enough for the humans to have forgotten about us monsters down here, I wonder? Tell me, my child, what year is it?”

Arthur stared at her back. “…Twenty eighteen. I… told you that.”

“Did you? My apologies. My mind isn’t what it used to be.” Toriel paused for a moment before asking, “What year is it?”

* * *

Toriel lead him through three more rooms in awkward silence. Fortunately, only one of them had a puzzle. One had a dummy whose head had been removed and stuffing ripped out, and the third was simply a long empty hallway. Aside from the crumbling sound of Flowey moving through the earth and his and Toriel’s footsteps, the halls were completely silent, and the silence gave Arthur room to think.

There was a whole city down here, and an empty one at that. Monsters wandered the ruins, most of whom wanted to attack him on sight and apparently the monsters felt the need to set up traps to keep humans away.

Had the monsters been attacked by humans before? It was such a strange concept to wrap his mind around. Arthur knew that supernatural creatures existed – even before the incident with the scary pink mansion ghost aka Lewis and homicidal tree lady he’d been dragged to enough haunted locations by Vivi to enter a permanent state of suspended disbelief – but they were few and far between on the surface. And of the ones the Mystery Skulls did manage to turn up in their investigations, they tended to be… Less than friendly. Arthur thought back to the number of times some terrifying thing had sent him running screaming for his life. It was weird to think that monsters might be scared of humans. He thought back to those empty houses in the abandoned city. Did whole monster families live there, once upon a time? Did little monster children ask their parents to check under their beds and in their closets for humans every night before they went to sleep?

As lost in thought as he was, Arthur didn’t notice Toriel had stopped yet again until he nearly collided with her back. But suddenly his vision was filled with black and red and he leaped back suddenly, good hand coming up in an apologetic gesture.

“I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention-”

Toriel silenced him by placing a hand on his head.

“I am afraid we must part ways for a while.” She didn’t even acknowledge he’d said anything. “I must attend to some business, and this place will serve as a safe haven for you while I am gone.”

Reaching into her robe, Toriel withdrew what Arthur took a moment to recognize as a cell phone. It was an older model, the kind that lacked a touch screen or basic internet services. Would that even do anyone any good if they weren’t however many miles underground?

“Please, take this. Call me if there is any trouble.”

“Thanks,” Arthur said, reaching into his pocket to withdraw his own cell phone. “But I already have one. We can trade numbe-”

Without warning, Toriel snatched the phone from his hands. Arthur’s noise of protest died in his throat as Toriel glared down at the device, and then with a disgusted huff she hurled it against the wall with all her might. Arthur stared in stupefied shock at the shattered remains of his phone scattered all over the floor.

“You won’t need that piece of worthless junk,” she growled. For a single moment her eyes were surprisingly clear, narrowed in anger. Then, adopting her sweet tone once more, she continued, “Now, please take-”

“-walk not the middle road.’ That is what the sign once read. Do you believe you can solve it?”

Arthur blinked. “Huh?”

“The puzzle,” Toriel repeated gently. “Please, try to solve it.”

Arthur blinked again, taking in his surroundings. The locked iron gate, and the switches on the floor… They were back at the first puzzle? But why? Without thinking, Arthur reached back into his pocket and-

His cell phone. Safe. Not shattered to pieces on the floor. Arthur let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His relief was short lived, however, as he noticed Toriel shooting him a confused look.

With a sheepish smile and a nervous laugh, Arthur said, “Uh, yeah, I think I can solve it.”

He stepped on the four switches on the outside. There was a rattling sound, followed by a loud click. This time Arthur didn’t jump out from underneath the boulder.

“Wonderful! Come, innocent one. There is more ahead.”

Arthur trailed a little ways behind Toriel, heart thumping in his chest. At his side Flowey continued trailing under the dirt, shooting Arthur suspicious looks when his head popped up.

“Why did you do that?” the flower hissed. “We made good progress. There was no reason to go all the way back.”

Reaching into his pocket again and brushing his fingertips against the cool plastic of his phone, just for reassurance, Arthur replied in a hushed voice, “I’ll show you later.”

Flowey was still shooting Arthur odd looks out of the corner of his eye, but thankfully didn’t push it.

They continued through the next three rooms without incident.

* * *

“I am afraid we must part ways for a while. I must attend to some business, and this place will serve as a safe haven for you while I am gone.”

Once more, Toriel reached into her robe for the old cell phone. Once more, Arthur couldn’t help wincing at how _old_ it was.

“Please, take this. Call me if there is any trouble.”

“Thanks,” Arthur said, accepting the phone with a forced smile. “I appreciate it.”

Toriel beamed.

“This place will serve as a safe haven for you. I will not be gone long.”

And with that she turned and left, leaving Arthur and Flowey alone together in the empty corridor. Arthur waited until he could no longer hear the sound of her padded foot steps echoing around the corner before he let out a soft breath and slumped his shoulders.

“I have never been more stressed in my life,” he commented, pocketing the phone, “and I died today.”

“Toriel is… something else,” Flowey agreed. “I’ve never seen her act like that.”

Exhaustion overtook Arthur and he leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit as comfortably as he could on the cold, stone floor. If they really were safe for the time being, it couldn’t hurt to stop and catch their breath. Flowey sank into the ground and popped up beside him, eyeing him curiously.

“Now, you wanna tell me what was so important about that thing she broke earlier? You said you’d show me!”

In some ways, Arthur couldn’t help thinking that Flowey was like a little kid. Despite his rather cynical world view, he was still quite energetic and curious. With a friendly smile Arthur pulled his own cell phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, revealing the wallpaper.

“No signal. That figures…” he murmured to himself before tilting the screen so that Flowey could get a better look at it. “Flowey, meet the Mystery Skulls.”

The photo had been taken a few years ago, but aside from some routine haircuts and a change in wardrobe, the four in the picture didn’t look much different now than they had back then. Arthur – hair just slightly shorter and vest missing its decorative pins – was held in a loose headlock by a tall, broad shouldered man whose magenta locks covered his eyes but did nothing to hide the gleeful expression he wore. A girl dressed head to toe in blue with hair to match was laughing at the boys’ antics and holding her little white dog. She was so focused on them that she failed to notice her pet snapping her sandwich off of her plate.

The four of them had been so happy back then. All of them friends, nobody dating anybody, everybody in the group equal to one another… A pang of guilt stabbed at Arthur as the thought entered his mind.

“That’s Vivi,” he said in an effort to distract himself from his thoughts. “She’s pretty much our leader. Well, not pretty much, she is. She roped me and Lewis into forming a club with her in high school, and, well, she loves mysteries so much that’s what the club ended up being centered around. Even her dog’s name is Mystery.”

Even through the layers of his shirt and vest, Arthur could feel Lewis’s soul thumping against his chest. If his only working arm wasn’t occupied holding the phone, he would have reached up to touch it.

“And the big guy’s name is Lewis. We’ve been friends forever, by which I mean since middle school. Most people think he’s scary at first ‘cause of how big he is, but he’s actually a huge ass dork and a hopeless romantic. Plus, he’s great with kids. I think you’d like him.”

Flowey listened to Arthur silently, expression unchanging. His eyes remained locked on the picture, taking in the names and faces of the people in Arthur’s life.

Of the purple-pink one in particular.

“Lewis is what you said the soul’s name was, right?” Flowey asked after a short pause. The question had an immediate effect of draining what little energy Arthur had managed to regain. His happy smile turned bitter, forehead creasing slightly.

“Yeah.” The soul felt warm in his vest pocket.

“…He was trying to kill you.”

Arthur nodded, not raising his eyes from the screen. Although he’d told himself he’d worry about the details _after_ he managed to get himself and Lewis out of there, _after_ their souls weren’t in danger of being stolen by bloodthirsty monsters, the momentary respite had the questions flooding back in and weighing him down more than his dead arm. One more than any other.

Did Lewis really hate him enough to want him dead? The answer seemed obvious. After all, Lewis had been actively trying to since the mansion, although Arthur hadn’t realized who he was back then. He wondered what he’d done to make Lewis so angry. Just thinking about it had Arthur’s chest clenching painfully and his eyes burning with unshed tears.

Flowey’s expression hadn’t changed, but he was staring at Arthur now, not the phone screen.

“We should probably talk about how we’re going to get through the rest of the ruins,” he said finally, breaking the tense silence. “I don’t like the idea of just waiting here for Toriel to come back. Even if she’s not planning on killing you herself, that doesn’t mean someone else can’t wander by and kill us.”

It was a sobering thought. Reluctantly, Arthur shut off his phone and returned it to his pocket.

“…She didn’t seem like she actually wanted to hurt us,” Arthur said. “I mean, she seems a little unhinged, but not like she was about to attack us or anything.”

“Yeah… I’ve never seen her like this,” Flowey admitted. “She’s scary. I’ve seen her kill lots of monsters without a second thought. Including me…”

When the little flower started to shake, Arthur placed a consoling hand on the back of his… head? Flowey jolted, leaves trembling and wrapping around his stem. Again, Arthur was struck by the image of a small child.

“B-but…” Flowey continued, straightening his stem. “Maybe… Maybe this is a good thing. The only exit to the ruins is underneath her house, after all.”

Thick brows jumping up his forehead, Arthur squeaked, “Wait, then how were you planning on getting out of here?”

“I don’t know! I usually just tunnel under the house, but… I guess I thought you could sneak in when she went out for supplies or something? I don’t know, okay!?”

“Okay! I’m sorry!” Arthur put a hand up in a disarming gesture. Tears had begun to pool in the corners of Flowey’s eyes and Arthur had to remind himself that he wasn’t the only one scared and lost down there, and unlike Arthur, Flowey had actually had to survive in the Ruins alone. “You’re right, we would have figured something out.”

He was the ‘adult’ in the situation. He didn’t know exactly how old Flowey was, but even so Arthur felt the instinctive need to protect him, never mind the fact that Flowey was a supernatural creature that could summon magical bullets out of thin air. So he gathered his thoughts, took a breath, and considered his options.

“So, Toriel’s house then. Any idea how far that is?” Flowey nodded.

“It’s been a long time since the last time I was there,” the flower admitted, “but I’ve seen it before. I… I-I _think_ I know the way? I normally just tunnel under the walls, but…”

Arthur watched as Flowey started mumbling quietly to himself, rubbing his nonexistent chin thoughtfully with the tip of one wilted leaf.

“There are a few traps between here and there. I usually just avoid them by going underground, but I don’t think that’ll work for you, so we’ll have to be really careful.”

Nodding, Arthur started to push himself up.

“And…”

And stopped as Flowey continued. The flower was twisting his leaves nervously again, a thin sheet of sweat coating his face.

“I think you should learn how to fight.”

“No.”

Even Arthur was surprised by his tone, far harder and sharper than he’d intended it to come out. But even so, he found he meant it. He didn’t want to fight. Flowey frowned.

“Arthur, you’re an easy target,” Flowey admonished. “As it stands, you don’t even have one EXP. If you gained even a couple of LVs you could stand a chance of defending yourself from the monsters outside the Ruins.”

Experience points. Levels. Like they were in a video game. It might have been funny if it weren’t so utterly terrifying. Flowey continued speaking, oblivious to Arthur’s thoughts.

“It’s like I said before; in this world, it’s kill or BE killed.”

Flowey sounded so broken as he said that. Arthur wondered if Flowey had ever killed anybody. Did he dare ask?

“…Maybe it doesn’t have to be.”

Flowey stared at him, mouth falling open to protest, but Arthur kept speaking.

“You didn’t kill me when we first met. You even helped me. I refuse to believe you’re the only good person down here.”

Flowey’s leaves and petals drooped, expression falling. He bowed his head, tattered petals falling forward to cast dark shadows over his face.

“Are you stupid?” His voice was beginning to shake again. “You’re just gonna die. And keep dying until you either give up and stay dead or give in to frustration and kill. There’s no other option.”

Arthur wondered if Flowey was speaking from personal experience.

“…I wouldn’t be much good in a fight anyway. I’m built like a noodle and my arm’s busted. See?” He reached over and grabbed the wrist of his robotic arm, lifting it in show and letting it flop to the ground uselessly. As if to prove his point, it let out one last dying spark. “’Sides, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s running away screaming in terror. If something attacks us I’ll just run away.”

Flowey bit his lip. A moment later, he gave the slightest nod. Arthur supposed that was the best he would get for now. With a sigh, he pushed himself up again, wobbling a little unsteadily on his feet as blood rushed to his legs.

For several moments Flowey simply watched Arthur walk away, still chewing on his bottom lip. Then he retreated underground, a trail of raised dirt tailing behind Arthur as he ventured deeper into the Ruins.

* * *

The next two rooms weren’t so terrible. An empty room with a single frog-like monster who hissed when they approached and ran away, and a room with a pitfall that Arthur could easily jump over. The third room was a little more difficult. Again, Arthur found himself thinking that these Ruins had been designed way too similarly to a video game level as he placed a heavy stone on the grey switch in the middle room. But as he started walking across the row of lowered spiked that had been blocking the path, he heard a rattling sound from below his feet and jumped out of the way seconds before they shot back out of the ground, narrowly avoiding being impaled a second time.

Then there was the fourth room, the floor almost _entirely_ crumbled away.

“There’s a safe path through here, somewhere,” Flowey said as Arthur inspected the edge of the cracked tiling, “but… I don’t know exactly where…”

No problem. Working in his uncle’s garage, Arthur had learned to be methodical in his approach to things and after a bit of backtracking he managed to find a stick which he used to test the floor in the fourth room. It was slow going, but bit by bit he managed to work out which tiles were safe to stand on and which ones were not.

Still, he and Flowey were both sweating profusely by the time they cleared the edge of the puzzle.

“Why would anyone _live_ in a place like this!?” Arthur wheezed between short breaths.

“It’s not like we wanted to be trapped down here, ya know,” Flowey spat, drawing a confused look from Arthur. “It was you humans that imprisoned us here.”

A beat of silence fell. Guilt tugged at Arthur’s chest.

“Toriel said something about humans,” he murmured, wiping a last bit of sweat from his cheek. “Why did the humans do that?”

“…Reasons. Doesn’t matter. We should keep moving.”

With that, Flowey sank into the ground again. This time, he didn’t wait for Arthur to start walking. The mechanic followed Flowey’s dirt trail through the next room.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to go far before they discovered yet another place to rest. After some difficulty with yet another rock puzzle, this time featuring a very rude talking rock, Arthur and Flowey found themselves in a small corridor with a little table tucked in the corner, a bit of moldy cheese stuck to it. Arthur discovered a tiny mouse hole on the opposite wall and despite Flowey’s protests left a small handful of the sunflower seeds he kept in his pocket for Galahad for the creature who lived there.

“You might want that food later,” Flowey had pointed out. Arthur just shrugged.

The next corridor was built a bit differently from the rest of the ruins, being so narrow in one spot that only one person could reasonably be expected to be able to walk through at a time. And at that spot someone had piled up a bunch of dead leaves and left a blob of… something on top of them. Arthur approached nervously, trying not to shake too bad. Was it a monster? Would it attack him and Flowey? As he drew near, he thought he could just make out a voice.

“Stupid, arrogant… Serves ‘em right, piece of selfish shi-”

“Um, excuse me?” Arthur spoke up as he approached the inky blob, earning a twitch from the whatever it was and a mortified look from Flowey. “Are you alright?”

“What are you doing asking if it’s alright!?” Flowey hissed, vines wrapping around Arthur’s ankle and tugging him back. “We gotta run!”

Arthur didn’t run. He stood there, watching as the blob started to rise in the air, taking shape. A very basic shape, yes, but a shape nonetheless. Red lines appeared on the black, scrawls of jagged teeth forming an eerie smile and gaping red holes, one slightly larger than the other, forming eyes. It was a ghost. Not a ghost like Lewis though. This one resembled more a classic bed sheet ghost, save for the fact that it was black instead of white.

A shudder ran down Arthur’s spine and he took a step back, good hand coming up in a placating gesture.

“ _The hell did you just ask me?_ ” the ghost growled. “’ _Am I alright?’_ _ **Why the fuck do you care!?**_ ”

Black clouds began to form overhead, despite the fact they were indoors, and a low rumbling sound echoed in the corridor.

Arthur gulped.

Well. Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't too sure about posting this here at first. Then I realized I can write whatever I want. Haha... I think this prolly happened because Hellbent and DeltaRune both came out fairly recently and as a result I had both MSA and Undertale on the brain quite a lot. That and I enjoy making characters I like suffer. Hopefully someone out there enjoys Arthur's suffering as much as I do.
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment if you liked it and I'll get the next chapter out soon!


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